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Seasonal variation in SARS-CoV-2 transmission in temperate climates: A Bayesian modelling study in 143 European regions

Although seasonal variation has a known influence on the transmission of several respiratory viral infections, its role in SARS-CoV-2 transmission remains unclear. While there is a sizable and growing literature on environmental drivers of COVID-19 transmission, recent reviews have highlighted confl...

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Autores principales: Gavenčiak, Tomáš, Monrad, Joshua Teperowski, Leech, Gavin, Sharma, Mrinank, Mindermann, Sören, Bhatt, Samir, Brauner, Jan, Kulveit, Jan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9455844/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36026483
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010435
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author Gavenčiak, Tomáš
Monrad, Joshua Teperowski
Leech, Gavin
Sharma, Mrinank
Mindermann, Sören
Bhatt, Samir
Brauner, Jan
Kulveit, Jan
author_facet Gavenčiak, Tomáš
Monrad, Joshua Teperowski
Leech, Gavin
Sharma, Mrinank
Mindermann, Sören
Bhatt, Samir
Brauner, Jan
Kulveit, Jan
author_sort Gavenčiak, Tomáš
collection PubMed
description Although seasonal variation has a known influence on the transmission of several respiratory viral infections, its role in SARS-CoV-2 transmission remains unclear. While there is a sizable and growing literature on environmental drivers of COVID-19 transmission, recent reviews have highlighted conflicting and inconclusive findings. This indeterminacy partly owes to the fact that seasonal variation relates to viral transmission by a complicated web of causal pathways, including many interacting biological and behavioural factors. Since analyses of specific factors cannot determine the aggregate strength of seasonal forcing, we sidestep the challenge of disentangling various possible causal paths in favor of a holistic approach. We model seasonality as a sinusoidal variation in transmission and infer a single Bayesian estimate of the overall seasonal effect. By extending two state-of-the-art models of non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI) effects and their datasets covering 143 regions in temperate Europe, we are able to adjust our estimates for the role of both NPIs and mobility patterns in reducing transmission. We find strong seasonal patterns, consistent with a reduction in the time-varying reproduction number R(t) (the expected number of new infections generated by an infectious individual at time t) of 42.1% (95% CI: 24.7%—53.4%) from the peak of winter to the peak of summer. These results imply that the seasonality of SARS-CoV-2 transmission is comparable in magnitude to the most effective individual NPIs but less than the combined effect of multiple interventions.
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spelling pubmed-94558442022-09-09 Seasonal variation in SARS-CoV-2 transmission in temperate climates: A Bayesian modelling study in 143 European regions Gavenčiak, Tomáš Monrad, Joshua Teperowski Leech, Gavin Sharma, Mrinank Mindermann, Sören Bhatt, Samir Brauner, Jan Kulveit, Jan PLoS Comput Biol Research Article Although seasonal variation has a known influence on the transmission of several respiratory viral infections, its role in SARS-CoV-2 transmission remains unclear. While there is a sizable and growing literature on environmental drivers of COVID-19 transmission, recent reviews have highlighted conflicting and inconclusive findings. This indeterminacy partly owes to the fact that seasonal variation relates to viral transmission by a complicated web of causal pathways, including many interacting biological and behavioural factors. Since analyses of specific factors cannot determine the aggregate strength of seasonal forcing, we sidestep the challenge of disentangling various possible causal paths in favor of a holistic approach. We model seasonality as a sinusoidal variation in transmission and infer a single Bayesian estimate of the overall seasonal effect. By extending two state-of-the-art models of non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI) effects and their datasets covering 143 regions in temperate Europe, we are able to adjust our estimates for the role of both NPIs and mobility patterns in reducing transmission. We find strong seasonal patterns, consistent with a reduction in the time-varying reproduction number R(t) (the expected number of new infections generated by an infectious individual at time t) of 42.1% (95% CI: 24.7%—53.4%) from the peak of winter to the peak of summer. These results imply that the seasonality of SARS-CoV-2 transmission is comparable in magnitude to the most effective individual NPIs but less than the combined effect of multiple interventions. Public Library of Science 2022-08-26 /pmc/articles/PMC9455844/ /pubmed/36026483 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010435 Text en © 2022 Gavenčiak et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Gavenčiak, Tomáš
Monrad, Joshua Teperowski
Leech, Gavin
Sharma, Mrinank
Mindermann, Sören
Bhatt, Samir
Brauner, Jan
Kulveit, Jan
Seasonal variation in SARS-CoV-2 transmission in temperate climates: A Bayesian modelling study in 143 European regions
title Seasonal variation in SARS-CoV-2 transmission in temperate climates: A Bayesian modelling study in 143 European regions
title_full Seasonal variation in SARS-CoV-2 transmission in temperate climates: A Bayesian modelling study in 143 European regions
title_fullStr Seasonal variation in SARS-CoV-2 transmission in temperate climates: A Bayesian modelling study in 143 European regions
title_full_unstemmed Seasonal variation in SARS-CoV-2 transmission in temperate climates: A Bayesian modelling study in 143 European regions
title_short Seasonal variation in SARS-CoV-2 transmission in temperate climates: A Bayesian modelling study in 143 European regions
title_sort seasonal variation in sars-cov-2 transmission in temperate climates: a bayesian modelling study in 143 european regions
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9455844/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36026483
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010435
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